academic decathlon

2022-02-17

i've been in academic decathlon for 4 years now. in my first year, my teammates were very dedicated, and i was in the b-team. i mainly joined because i had a crush on one of them, and they asked all the freshmen in algebra 2 to consider it. i was also into worldbuilding, but didn't have any knowledge to intelligently worldbuild. but with its promise of teaching me economics, art history, music theory and history, etc.

some background: this is an academic competition from may to february/march, but most teams start working on it in the summer. there are 10 subjects, 7 of them are scored by standardized test, 3 are scored by volunteering judges: art, economics, literature, math, music, social science, science | essay, interview, speech. the ones with a standardized test have a full 70+ page guide dedicated to teaching them, lush with sat vocabulary. each subject is scored out of 1000, but it's rare for people to get 1000 in non-judged subjects. there are 3 gpa categories for a student to compete in with separate awrds, which is meant to encourage people of all gpas to join the competition, as opposed to clubs and sports that bar people under 2.0 gpa. honors: 3.75 - 4.0 unweighted, scholastic: 3.0 - 3.749, varsity: <3.0. it also scales to each gpa group's motivation. in general, honors work on decathlon the hardest, then scholastic less, then varsity the least. each year of acadeca has a unique theme that the content is centered around.

2018-2019's was the 1960s. i loved reading about sonata form as i cozied up in a school bus on the way to/from a race, training for a marathon - my other main extracurricular. jefferson airplane - white rabbit and sasha allen - aquarius, from the musical hair were bangers. laser optics absolutely confused me. there was a mountain retreat in the winter, where we just studied for 3 days. i pretended to be one of my teammates who couldn't make it to the regional award ceremony in february, wearing 2 of their medals. we were close to getting to state.

the next year, the older teammates were also very skillful, but those in my grade weren't too motivated to study. my crush faded, but they continued to impress. for example, they created a detailed slides presentation on a wpa modernization of harlem hospital within 40 minutes, while listening to other people's presentations at the same time. the theme was in sickness and health. i got on a-team in honors, and continued to read in my free time. retreat was cozy. i won 2 medals in regionals, as the best scorer from my team. maurice ravel's le tombeau de couperin - vi. toccata was beautiful to hear. we were close to going to state.

the next year, 2 people joined. there were only 2 seniors on the team, one of them new. i was still in honors. my old crush, who was really good at decathlon, gave up on it. there was no retreat. there were no meetings in real life. i didn't study much during the school year, but during the summer, i read 700 pages worth of acadeca - 6/7 of the guides, and cat's cradle. then 2 weeks before competition, i studied hard. it paid off, i got maybe 5 bronze/silver/gold medals and $400+ in check form. i was my team's top scorer, but the seniors on my team were also amazing and got us to 19 awards as a team. they were hardworking, and genuinely interested in the music, art, and history of the cold war. i also designed my state competition's buttons in a contest, a nuke in front of a soft ice gradient, accented with the us and ussr's flag colors. there were only 1-2 contest entries, so naturally i won. still, my design deserved it. my team didn't make it to state.

i died in school after competition, ending up with a 62% or so in ap calculus ab, although getting a 5 on the exam, and b's and c's in 3 other classes. i might have adhd - currently in the evaluation process for it.

this year, i fell down to scholastic due to my grades. almost all my teammates are seniors. the only one that isn't is a junior. this probably means that my school's team is gonna die next year. in the first few months, a few freshmen and sophomores were interested, but decided not to join. none of them are dedicated to studying for decathlon, with the theme of water. however, they did work hard on the interview and speech section and got some medals there. i actually did my best in interview and speech this year, both with scores above 850, which is really nice. but i only studied in 1-4 hours meetings, which was way different from the previous 3 years, where i had a lot of motivation. except, on the day before competition, i studied for 3 hours at home, and on another day, i read 3 pages on claude debussy's children's corner. i had all the days from june to february to read at home, but i only did so on 2 days.

i only read social science, jack london's the sea wolf, and literature in full. i completed art with old notes on basic art history and some art guide and cram kit reading, but didn't get to the minute details of everything. i read less than half of science and music. i barely touched econ and never opened the math guide, but i did pay attention to rare statistics sessions.

today, my team and i received our scores and saw what awards we won. i had an overall score lower than last year, but got 5 gold medals and 1 silver, as well as $1000+, thanks to being scholastic!

every other team also scored low, and i carried my team's score into state-invited territory. we didn't expect to go to the state competition. i have never gone to state. without covid, it entails being given tickets to fly to the city with the competition, hotel rooms, dances, and socializing with students across the state. i have never been over 200 miles from my hometown, nor been in a hotel, so that would've been a huge experience. however, it is virtual this year. i will know none of those things. our team also lost 2 weeks of preparation, not thinking we'd go to state, which is in a few weeks.

i really enjoyed my time away from decathlon. i read 4 books, remastered minesweeper, relistened to music, revisited programming music... but i have to get back on the grind.

update: added that this day was the awards ceremony + other details throughout

2022-07-11 renamed